Turkey Trot!

Tomorrow is my first Turkey Trot ever!  I did an easy 4 mile run this morning before work to shake my legs out after a hard Boot Camp class last night.  Boot Camp didn't ever appeal to me (I don't respond to being yelled at when I'm exercising), but was open to trying it since my friend was teaching it.  I was afraid it would be too much cardio and not enough weights, but that wasn't the case at all.  The short cardio bursts between the weight routines made me feel like I was working harder than usual. 

Today I'm at work (blah), but I'm going to sneak out a little early.  I need to drive to my parents' house tonight (we're supposedly having crab for dinner...yum) so I'll be close to the start of the 10K Turkey Trot tomorrow.  The race doesn't start until 9AM, but I want to get there by 8:15AM to get my bib and warm up.  Let's hope I can get a PR!

What are you doing for Turkey Day? 

XOXO
Kim

Short Week!

I was going to say how glad I was that this was a short work week, but then I realized that's pretty obvious.  Who isn't happy with a short work week?

My weekend was good. Sunday was awesome because I had a deep tissue massage and some "me" time sweating out the toxins in the wet sauna and then went to see The Descendants. I'd highly recommend it! Besides the story being engaging and the acting top-notch, the Kauai scenes had me itching to go back there. It's not my favorite island because of all the driving you have to do to get around and the resulting traffic on the two-lane roads, but seeing Hanalei Bay made me nostalgic for a surfing trip I took there in November 2010. 

After the movie I headed to the gym for a yoga class. My marathon schedule dictated 60 minutes of cross-training, so I did 30 minutes of cardio (20 on the elliptical and 10 on the bike) and then took the yoga class.  I guess it did something because my obliques, back, and arms are all sore today. 

Saturday was a bit of a blur. I slept in a little (if you can call 7AM "sleeping in") and then did my 5 mile recovery run (through Fisherman's Wharf and down the Embarcadero). Then it was home for some Instant Netflix time on the Wii (watched my first episode of Breaking Bad and loved it) and a little reading. 

I'm currently reading Sideways on a Scooter by Miranda Kennedy. It's fascinating to read about what it's really like to live in India (from the point of view of an upper middle class American, that is), but reinforces my desire to never visit there. I can't even camp, so visiting India would be out of the question.

Later I went dancing, but didn't have that great of a time. It wasn't awful, but I'm just not big on dance music from the "90s, 00s, and 10s." I just stayed for 3 hours and then headed home.

My plans for this week start with looking over my marathon training schedule: 

Monday:  Rest
Tuesday:  Boot Camp (60 minutes)
Wednesday:  Run (4 miles easy)
Thursday:  Run (Turkey Trot 10K = 6.2 miles)
Friday:  Rest
Saturday:  Run (9 miles)
Sunday:  60 minutes Cross-Training
Total:  19.2 miles

I modified the original schedule, which had 18 miles for the week and no 6.2 mile run in the middle of the week.  I just tweaked it a little so the mileage wouldn't go too far over the 18 miles, but I could also do the required 9 miles on Saturday. 

Today I'm at work and then I'm getting together with my favorite college roomie and her family!  I got a surprise call from her last night and always have a good time together.  We'll probably go to dinner and wander around Fisherman's Wharf.  We're all big ice cream fans, so I'm sure we can fit that in even with the cold San Francisco weather today.

Have a good week!

XOXO
Kim

Robyn Hitchcock

A few months ago I got really burnt out on going out dancing/clubbing and all the socializing involved.  I realized that I'm not really that much of a social animal.

Don't get me wrong.  I love going out and doing things that are social (seeing bands, dancing, restaurants, bars, etc.), but I realized that I really don't enjoy doing those things in large groups.  I'm more of a solo or small group kind of person and realized that I'll never change no matter how much I'd like to be one of those "popular" kids with tons of people around.  It's not really necessary or pleasurable for me to have to be friends with a huge clique.  It only took me 44 years to figure that out!

Anyway, I have been doing things besides working out and running!  I saw my friends Jennifer and Brian last night for the second time in two weeks.  Crazy.  We hadn't gone out together in ages, but we went to dinner and the Wild Flag show a couple of weeks ago and last night we went to Mercury Lounge before the Robyn Hitchcock show at Slim's.  

We were all interested in trying Mercury Lounge after seeing it reviewed on one of our favorite TV shows, Check, Please Bay Area.  I would probably go back again for Happy Hour since they had some good $5 appetizers that were large portions.  However, I'm not really sure about dinner.  The dishes were family style and we were told that the portions were large, which they weren't.  The food itself wasn't bad, but it wasn't memorable either.  My Cucumber Drop was tasty, but not on the Happy Hour menu ($9).  I'm wondering how their Sunday brunch would be since they have bottomless Mimosas or Bloody Marys.  You can't really go wrong with brunch, right?

Unfortunately, we got to Slim's after all the seats were taken.  Had I known that there would be tables downstairs (which I'd NEVER seen at Slim's), we would have arrived earlier.  In spite of that, we were there early enough to get situated in a good standing area where we weren't jostled.  (Usually when I'm at Slim's I'm in an area where I'm always in someone's way.)  

I hadn't seen Robyn Hitchcock in years and forgot how fantastic he is live!  He performed all of the Eye album and was just so great.  That album was recorded in San Francisco in 1988/1989, so it was really special having him coming back to San Francisco to perform it live.  He is just such a great storyteller and so witty!

Here's a video of him playing "Madonna of the Wasps" at a festival.  Last night it was just him with an acoustic guitar (with harmonica on some songs), but this will give you an idea of how great he is!

Today's my day off from work and supposed to be a training "rest" day.  I was going to go to yoga, but my legs are kind of tired this morning, so I might just do it later from one of my videos.  My training weeks start every Monday, so this is how this week (Training Week #3) is shaking out:

Monday:  Rest (I baked cookies after work!)

Tuesday:  60 minute Boot Camp + Run 3 miles

Wednesday:  Run 4 miles

Thursday:  Run 3 miles

Friday:  Rest?  Yoga?  Upper body weight workout + Yoga?

Saturday:  Run 5 miles

Sunday:  60 minutes Cross Training

Next week the mileage starts to climb again and I'm running a 10K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, so that should be fun.

I'm going to be better about updating here (and not being lazy about downloading photos from my iPhone), so thanks for reading! 

XOXO

Kim

Weekly Workout & New Wave!

Sorry it's been a while since an official update, but it's been busy and I received some bad news this weekend about a friend's health, so I just wasn't up to blogging.  


I'm feeling better now, so here's a little bit of what I've been doing.  First, half marathon training is still on track and I made every workout on the original schedule, but I tweaked some of the original cross training that I planned.

 Monday - Run (5 miles Easy/7 minutes Fartlek)
Tuesday - Strength Training Class (60 minutes) I was waiting for a call from my doctor and only needed 55 minutes of cardio, so I did the elliptical & recumbent bike for 55 minutes so I wouldn't have to miss his call & start over.
Wednesday - Run (5 miles Easy/7 minutes Tempo)
Thursday - Strength Training Class (60 minutes) I ended up taking a Yoga class (60 minutes)
Friday - Rest
Saturday - Run (9 miles Easy/7 minutes Tempo)
Sunday - Run (5 miles Easy)


Saturday was super busy since I had a long run and then I needed to be at the SF Ferry Building in time to check that my Clipper card was loaded for the ride over to Sausalito for the art festival.  Good thing I got there early and checked it because the line for the machine was crazy later and we barely made the ferry as it was.


I know you're asking why we almost missed the ferry if I got there so early (11:10AM for a noon ferry).  Well, my friend and I waited in line for 40 minutes (yes, 40 minutes) for lattes from Blue Bottle.  It was delicious (and pretty....see below), but seriously, I would never have waited if we hadn't been waiting for a noon ferry.  

Blue Bottle Latte

We had to stand on our way to Sausalito because the ferry was PACKED, but it was only 30 minutes and the weather was nice.  

Not the best shot, but it was crowded & we were moving!

We got to the festival too late to see Men Without Hats, but made it in time to see all of The Romantics.  I like their two hits from the 80's, but everything else sounded the same to me.  No matter because the audience was way into them.

After wandering around looking for food (I was starving after a 9 mile run and only some chocolate soy milk for recovery), we settled on some mediocre pizza.  I would have preferred the gyro, but the line was too long.  Crab cakes were our second option, but the woman was kind of bitchy, so we moved over to pizza.

The main reason we went to the festival was to see The Human League.  I'd seen them a few years ago at Red Devil Lounge and they were AWESOME.  This show was no exception.  

Here was the setlist:

1.  Never Let Me Go
2.  Open Your Heart
3.  Sound of the Crowd
4.  Heart Like a Wheel
5.  The Lebanon
6.  Egomaniac
7.  Empire State Human
8.  Night People
9.  Human
10.  Love Action
11.  All I Ever Wanted
12.  Tell Me When
13.  (Keep Feeling) Fascination
14.  Mirror Man
15.  Don't You Want Me?


Encore:
16.  Being Boiled
17.  Electric Dreams

Songs #1 & #8 were from their new album, which I'm totally buying because the songs were fantastic!  Sometimes you just want a band to stick with their strengths and not try to create something totally new and that's what the new songs were like.  


Here's a link to the one I really liked ("Night People").  (Sorry, but there's an ad at the beginning.)

The rest of the weekend I spent at my parents with a little trip to Bodega Bay to The Tides Restaurant for Dad's birthday.


Tonight I'm off to dinner in Los Gatos and then Tears for Fears at Mountain Winery.  Tomorrow I need to do a 10 mile run, so hopefully I get enough rest tonight!


Have a great weekend!  What are you up to?


XOXO

In Bed...

It's Sunday morning at 8:41 and I'm just going to laze around in bed for a while.  I've been up for a while and already had my oatmeal spinach smoothie and was going to just stay here and do my run later.  However, once I heard the fog horns and started thinking about how nice it is to run Fisherman's Wharf in the fog with no tourists out, I got dressed and did my run for today (4 miles).

A lot of people don't like the fog, but I love this weather.  The only thing I don't like is wind!  Here are a couple of shots during a quick photo stop at 3 miles at Aquatic Park.  Cool, right?

You can't even see Alcatraz behind that big ship!

View of Fisherman's Wharf

This week's workouts went pretty much as planned except Thursday, but I still completed everything on the schedule.  Next week the running mileage will start to climb!

Monday - Run (5 miles Easy/5 minutes Tempo)
Tuesday - Strength Training Class (60 minutes)
Wednesday - Run (5 miles Easy/7 minutes Tempo)
Thursday - Strength Training Class Cardio (55 minutes - Elliptical, Stationary Bike, Stair Climber)
Friday - Rest
Saturday - Recovery Run (5 miles Easy)
Sunday - Run (4 miles Easy)


I didn't really go out this week...shocker!  I think I was burned out after months of going out 3-4 nights a week.  I'm also suffering from allergies and sinus headaches that just wear me out.  I did manage to finish two great books.  Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (a re-read of a childhood book that's on my 101 in 1001 list) and The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton.  The Lock Artist kept me riveted, so I'll definitely be looking for some of his other books.

I haven't done much cooking this week except experimenting with different smoothie recipes.  This one is the same as my oatmeal smoothie, but without the oatmeal.  Instead I added spinach and Trader Joe's frozen three berry medley (with Barbara's Puffins in Cinnamon flavor on top).  The taste was good, but I'm not into the seeds in my teeth from the blackberries in the fruit.

Yesterday I went to a birthday luncheon at Golden River Seafood Restaurant at Geary and 23rd.  My friend's mother passed away last year and this would have been her 80th birthday, so he generously included me in the celebration.  I really need to do a review of this place on Yelp to get their score up.  Three stars isn't a bad score, but I would put it in the four stars category.  I'm still not drinking (today is day 30 with no alcohol!), but they actually comped about ten large bottles of beer because my friend is such a good customer.

OK, I'm rambling now.  I cleaned out a huge cupboard in the kitchen yesterday along with two carts, so today I'm going to tackle either my clothing drawers or one of my clothes closets after my massage and spa time later.  If I have time, I might make the peanut butter scone recipe I found.

Have an awesome Sunday!

XOXO

Week in Workouts

It's Sunday and I finally got a good night's sleep.  I had a major headache last night, so I decided to just stay in and go to bed early after watching a movie.  Harold and Maude is streaming on Netflix.  How have I never seen that movie?


My week went pretty much as planned this week as far as workouts, but with a few tweaks....


Monday - Run (5 miles Easy/6 minutes Fartlek)
Done!


Tuesday - Cross Train (55 minute 50 minutes) - I read the schedule wrong when I typed this.  It was actually 50 minutes of cross training, so I got up early and did 25 minutes on the elliptical, 15 minutes on the stationary bike, and 10 minutes on the stair climber.


Wednesday - Strength Training Class Yoga - This was going to be another cross-training day and I usually go to strength training on Tuesday/Thursday.  I realized that I needed to make pasta salad for our company picnic the next day, so I ended up coming straight home from work and taking care of that and then taking a 60-minute Vinyasa Yoga class.  It's still a form of strength training and I got some stretching in, too!

Thursday - Run (5 miles Easy/5 minutes Tempo) - Done! I did this out at Ocean Beach after our company picnic.

Friday - Rest

Saturday - Run (7 miles Easy/7 minutes Tempo) - I did this, but didn't really enjoy it.  I wasn't feeling well at all and wished I'd saved this run for Sunday!

Sunday - Run (4 miles Easy) - This was a lot more enjoyable after a full night of sleep and rest.  I could have kept going, but 4 miles was all that was on the schedule.


It's really overcast here, but I wasn't planning to go out today anyway.  I'm going to try to clean either a closet or my drawers and maybe bake a loaf of bread.  Later I have early dinner plans with a neighbor at a popular SF restaurant, so I'm looking forward to that.


Have a great Sunday!  XOXO

Where Did My Saturday Go?

It's almost 4PM and I've done a lot today, but somehow didn't do everything I wanted to accomplish.

I started the day with a smoothie experiment.  Here's what I used:

1/2 c Oats
1/2 Frozen Banana
1 c Almond Milk
1 T Flaxseed Meal
1/2 scoop Whole Foods Vanilla Soy Milk Protein Powder

I mixed that in the blender, poured it in a bowl, and topped it with a few Barbara's Peanut Butter Puffins.  It was delicious, but hearty and filling!

Banana Oat Smoothie posing on my rug

I decided to drive out to Ocean Beach for my second run out there this week since I was up early enough and wanted to make a couple of stops out that way on my way back.  The run was kind of a struggle because I wasn't feeling great and didn't realize how much uphill there would be from mile 2.3 until my turnaround spot at mile 3.5.  I almost didn't do the 7 minutes of tempo because it was getting warmer, but I ran it between minutes 53 and 60.  It was worth it to see the 650 calories burned at the end!

I finally tried out the new Fresh and Easy store out in the avenues.  It wasn't busy at all around 10AM and is an alternative to Trader Joe's.  I mostly bought fruit and veggies, so I'll be interested to see if the produce lasts longer than TJ's.

After that I made a stop at Cheap Pete's to get frames for my Go-Go's and Duran Duran concert posters from The Fillmore.  They make frames specially sized already for the posters, so I bought a couple (one in silver and one in black).  Unfortunately, I didn't realize that they weren't the wooden ones that I bought before and I didn't know how to get the posters in, so I had to make another trip across town for a remedial lesson.  It paid off because they're now framed and beautiful!

I came home and made a little snack using the banana bread that I made early in the afternoon (I told you I did a lot today).  I tore up a thin slice of the bread and put it over plain Greek yogurt with strawberries:

Snack...posing on my rug again

Now I'm trying to get myself to relax.  Laundry, mopping and vacuuming might need to wait until later or tomorrow.  I'm still not feeling great, but I agreed to meet a friend and go out for a while tonight.  I'm not really in the mood, but I'll be on the guest list, so it'll be free.  If I rally, I'll go on to the next place, but not sure if that will happen.

Hope you're having a good Saturday!  I think I'll read my book now.

XOXO

Is It Friday Already?

I survived my week!  Sorry I didn't do much updating (other than posting a few Formspring answers), but I like having photos on the blog and I didn't have time to download them from my phone until today.  This will be a pretty long post, so grab something to drink and get in a comfy position.

Monday was pretty much a typical day until the evening.  After work and running I attended a Yelp Elite BBQ party at Radius.  Here was the menu:

Unfortunately, I got there 30 minutes after the event started, but in that short amount of time they had already run out of the pulled pork, brisket, corn bread, and most of the potato salad!  The wings were pretty tasty though and I liked the space and the owner's impassioned speech about his employees and using local ingredients, so I'd definitely try it again for a regular meal.

Tuesday was a little more of a challenge because I had to fit in a cross-training workout along with work and The Go-Go's concert later at The Fillmore.  I decided it would be easier to work out before work instead of running around like a crazy person after work, so I got up extra early to do my 50 minutes of cross-training at the gym (25 minutes elliptical, 15 minutes bike, 10 minutes stair climber in case you're interested).

I met my friends at The Fillmore later and we took a photo of the collage that turned out to be what was used on the awesome free poster that they gave away!  

Artwork by Jason Mecier

The collage was gorgeous as you can hopefully see.  (The iPhone just doesn't do it justice.)  The artist's name is Jason Mecier and you should check out his website to see some amazing work.  He's a mosaic artist and will make artwork out of anything.  This piece of artwork had everything:  tampon boxes, make-up containers, bandage boxes...the works.  Really beautiful.  The poster was cool, too, so I'm going to Cheap Pete's on Geary and get one of their white frames:

Anyway, The Go-Go's came on at 9 and played until 10:15.  They were as good as all the times I'd seen them in the past and everyone had a blast!  The band was tight, Belinda's voice was strong, and they were all getting along and having fun.

I was counting and the first show I saw was their last tour in the 80's with Jane at the Greek Theater.  Then I saw them twice in the 90's:  once at Shoreline Amphitheater with The B-52's and Psychedelic Furs and later at The Warfield.  Then I saw them a few years ago at The Independent on Divisadero.  

Here was the setlist from my trusty iPhone notepad:

Vacation

Tonight

How Much More

Get Up and Go

Mad About You (cover of Belinda's solo song)

Lust to Love

Mother's Little Helper (cover of The Rolling Stones song!)

Automatic

Fading Fast

Cool Jerk

Cool Places (cover of the song Jane sang with Sparks)

This Town

Unforgiven

Our Lips Are Sealed

Skidmarks on My Heart

We Got the Beat

Encore:

Beatnik Beach

Fun with Ropes

Head Over Heels

Wednesday I came home from work and prepared a huge pasta salad for our company picnic on Thursday.  There was a lot of chopping and dicing involved, but here was the finished product:

I must say that it turned out really well!  Pasta salad isn't that complicated, but I did use a recipe that I ended up tweaking.  For one, it called for 8 oz. of tomato sauce to be mixed with 8 oz. Italian dressing.  That sounded weird to me and it sounded weird to other people, too, so I just used 16 oz. of Italian dressing.  I also omitted the mushrooms and used a yellow pepper that I had on hand.  Whole wheat pasta would have made this even healthier, but I wasn't sure how that would go over at a company picnic.  

Speaking of healthy, I made these awesome (and relatively healthy) "no bake" cookies right after the pasta was done:

Just oats, maple syrup, cocoa, and peanut butter.  They satisfy my sweet tooth without making me feel guilty!

After making the pasta salad and the cookies, I went to a free yoga class at Lululemon on Union St.  It was from 7:30-8:30 and it was the first time I'd taken a yoga class from an instructor other than one at 24 Hour Fitness.  (Oh, except a couple of Bikram classes, but that's a whole other arena of yoga.)  It was crowded, but I felt great after class.  I might start going on Wednesdays after my runs since it's so convenient.

Yesterday was the first night that I stayed in all week and it was so nice!  We left our company picnic at Golden Gate Park around 2:30 and I drove up to the Beach Chalet to change into my running gear and do my 5 mile training run.  It was so great for a couple of reasons:

1.  I ditched the heart rate monitor and decided to rely on what felt right as an "easy" pace instead of relying on the monitor.   Runs were becoming less enjoyable and I felt that I was able to converse (the path wasn't crowded, so I talked to myself for a while to see if I could carry on a conversation and keep my breath) running at my regular easy pace.

2.  The route was one that I hadn't done in quite a while, so the variety made it more interesting.  I was running across from Ocean Beach, the path had small rolling hills and wasn't crowded, and the weather was nice and cool like I like it!  I have 7 miles to do on Saturday, so I might do this run with an additional 2 miles tacked on somewhere.

Tonight I'm still in a staying in mood and I need to rest up for the run tomorrow and all the other stuff I'm doing this weekend.  I'm going to put off making banana bread until tomorrow afternoon and read my new book from the library tonight and maybe watch the last episode of True Blood on my Netflix DVD.  

In addition to finishing my re-read of Harriet the Spy, I'm now reading Orange Is The New Black by Piper Kerman.  It's about a woman who did some drug trafficking for a girlfriend for a short time in her early 20's and then had to pay for the crime 10 years later when she was indicted and eventually sentenced to 15 months in a women's prison.  I just started it and I'm hooked!

How was your week??

XOXO

Big Gay 10K

Yesterday was the Big Gay 10K race from Fort Mason to Fort Point (just underneath the Golden Gate Bridge) and back.  The morning started pretty chilly, but really cleared up and was pretty warm by the time we were on our way back from the bridge.  This outfit would have worked a lot better without the long-sleeved shirt underneath:

My outfit for Nike Half Marathon?

Note how sunny it was near the finish line!

The costumes this year weren't quite as crazy as they were last year (when there was a team of guys dressed as geisha or another couple dressed as The Ambiguously Gay Duo), but at least we had a penguin:

Penguin...bundled up in the fog at the start

My finish time was 1:04:59, which was more than two minutes less than last year and got me a spot at #17 in my age group (out of 43, not 17...ha ha), so I was happy!  A blinking pin for finishing was the icing on the cake...

Instead of a medal. This is cute!

Oh, that and going to dinner with my parents at Panama Hotel in San Rafael.  Half of my Dad's hamburger with bacon and avocado hit the spot.  I love the Fire Roasted Chile Stuffed with Quinoa (and mushroom and a bunch of other good stuff), but my body was craving beef, so we brought most of that home.  We also split a really good Apple and Strawberry Crisp with Tahitian Vanilla Gelato for dessert.  The perfect end to my running day!

I almost forgot what we split as an appetizer since we have it every time we go!  It was the Tuscan Toast Platter with roasted garlic, sundried tomato tapenade, goat cheese, and olives.  A great start!

On Friday I just relaxed (my workout "Rest" day) and got a gel mani and pedi (with extra 10 minute leg massage...aah), bought some more hair dye, stopped by Trader Joe's, and then made this salad for dinner:

This salad looked crazy and there was a bunch of stuff hiding in it, but it was mixed greens, avocado, carrots, chickpeas, a Spicy Bean Garden Burger (ripped up!), alfalfa sprouts, and a few crumbled up pretzels to add some carbs and crunch.  The dressing was my own concoction:  1T Greek yogurt (plain),
1t Sweet & Sour Mustard (from TJ's), 1t minced garlic, and a couple of shakes of soy sauce to make it a little more liquid.  Yummy!

Today I'm chilling at my parents' house after an early 4 mile run and a shopping spree at Target.  We're catching up on the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  Hilarious!

XOXO

P.S.  Bear with me while I goof around some more with the design of this blog!

It's My Friday and I'll Gloat If I Want To

I almost said "Well, it's Friday!" when I realized that it's only Thursday.  It's my Friday since tomorrow's my Friday off.

Here was how the day started:

Note that it's August 11th, but this was how it looked when I was waiting for the bus at 7AM (late again...oops). 

It's been a good week for workouts.  My lower right calf was having little cramps yesterday, so I decided to do elliptical and bicycle cross training instead of strength training, which is what I did on Monday.  It might be caused by either wearing heels and walking a lot or possibly my running shoes.  I'm just under 200 miles on the shoes and they should be good until at least 300, but it might be time for a brand change.  The Mizuno Wave Runner 13 treated me well, but the 14 doesn't seem to be an improvement over that model.  I'll see how today's run goes.

Speaking of runs, the Big Gay 10K is on Saturday!  I'm not sure why I put an exclamation point there since it's not quite as exciting as last year when we had a team of gals and we all dressed up for it (see my Running page for a photo of my outfit).  This year everyone flaked, so I'm probably not dressing up for the run, but I'll enjoy seeing all the other funny outfits.  I needed to run 6 miles on Saturday anyway as part of training and this is for a good cause (SF Aids Foundation) and will be over by 10:15 for me, so I was happy to sign up as an individual.

This week was also good for getting up to speed on a couple of other social networking sites:  Formspring and Pinterest. 

I've been on Formspring for a long time, but never really answered any questions.  I decided to pick that up again since it's a good way for people to find out about me (on here at least).  My previous post was an answer to one of the questions that I liked, so I'll probably post some of my answers from time to time.  You can also ask me a question through the Formspring badge in the sidebar of this blog.

Pinterest is what has become an addiction in the span of just a couple of days.  The idea is that you create "boards" (kind of like inspiration boards) where you can "pin" images of people/places/things/whatever that you find on the Web that you like.  If you go into my sidebar, you'll see a link to my Pinterest site and it'll make more sense.  It's cool because you can also "like" the pins that other people have posted or you can "re-pin" on your own boards.  If you think it's as cool as I do, just go to www.pinterest.com and request an invite to join.  (I received mine on the same day.)

Well, back to work.  More tomorrow or this weekend!

XOXO

Officially in training...

I was going to post this last night, but I got caught up in what any good iPhone user knows all so well....software update.   Gah!  It took over an hour and by then I was too tired to do anything.

Anyway, I'm in my first official week of training to run the Nike Women's Half Marathon.  I'm following the same schedule that I followed for my prior three half marathons, but I'm trying to exclusively do the "Advanced" level plan.  That has slightly more mileage, but the big difference is that it has runs scheduled four days a week instead of three.  I figure I'll need to do four days when I start training for the Napa Valley Marathon in March 2012, so I might as well get used to it.

I've been inspired by some of the blogs I've been reading to change up a few things on the calendar to try to increase my speed.  The schedule I've been using has some speed workouts (Tempo and Fartlek), but no "track" workouts.  Now that I have my fancy, schmancy Garmin Forerunner 305, it'll be easier for me to work those in.  I'm thinking that maybe on some of my shorter runs during the week can incorporate those, but I'll have to see how it goes.

Speaking of my Garmin Forerunner....I love it!  It's amazing all the stuff it can do.  Look at it!

I guess this post doesn't mean a lot if you don't run, but this little device does everything I need.  I had a short run Monday night (4 miles) and it was great to know my pace at all times, get a reminder at 2 miles (so I knew when to turn around), and to get accurate mileage.  (I've been using Runkeeper on my iPhone, but I would notice that if the runs had a lot of twists and turns, the GPS would cut corners and inaccurately display my miles.)

Tonight I tried out the heart rate monitor and set alerts when my heart rate got over the "comfortable" zone, but it was driving me crazy beeping every time my heart rate got over 140 BPM.  I felt like I was hardly moving and it would beep.  I was running, so it was hard to keep it in the 130 range.  Anyway, last night and tomorrow night are my cross training days (strength endurance classes at the gym and a walk home) and then Friday is my rest day.  Saturday will be 5 easy miles and then Sunday is 3 easy.

As far as diet goes, I've been eating more vegetables and fruits and keeping track of my fiber and generally eating healthier (aka "eating at home").  I've been making overnight oats for several days in a row, but I've become addicted, so I'll probably make more for tomorrow.  (I've started adding unsweetened cocoa with a teaspoon of honey and it turns the oatmeal a nice chocolatey brown.)

Tonight I was starving before my run, so I made this oatmeal protein pancake that I read about (topped with sunflower butter and a few M&Ms as a treat).  It was easy, filling, low cal, low fat, and delicious!

That's it for me for tonight.  I think I'm off to obsessively study the downloaded data from my Garmin and then read.

What did you have for dinner?